Warlord of Azatlan

16

Like the yawning mouth of a skull, the vast cavern exposed the interior of the mountain. Thousand-watt worklights illuminated the complex of barracks, offices, equipment yards and helipads. The mouth of the cavern opened to the east, exactly as Nate had described.

On the south end, prefabricated steel barracks rose three stories from the concrete and naked stone of the cave floor. Other steel buildings clustered at the west end where the ceiling of the cavern curved down. A concrete wall sealed the west end from the maze of passages and chambers within the volcanic mountain.

On the north end, steel aircraft hangars served as workshops for mechanics and welders. Trucks and two bulldozers lined the north wall.

In the center, where the arcing dome of the cavern created a two-hundred-foot-high airspace between the floor and the apex, Cobra gunships and Huey troop carriers waited for the next day's assault. Mechanics and ordnance technicians moved from helicopter to helicopter, servicing the engines, loading the multi-million-dollar weapon systems.

Lyons and Nate stood in the back of a stake-bed truck, surveying the fortress and the army of the Nazi warlord. Trucks and buses parked around them, mercenaries driving the vehicles to the wide, flat parking area scraped from the hills. Mercenaries walked past the truck where they stood without giving the two men a glance. With their European faces and gray uniforms, the two infiltrators passed as Nazis.

Beyond the gravel area, a hundred yards of scorched hillside separated the base from the forest. Only the road breached the perimeter.

Lyons squatted in the shadows with his hand-radio.

"Ironman speaking. We're in. There's no other way in but the road."

"Won't be a problem," Blancanales responded.

"The trucks and buses enter and park in rows. No one checks the interiors. No sentries. A few meres wandering around. Everyone else is busy…"

A scream, then laughter came from the center of the parking area. Lyons and Nate could not see the scene of torture from the truck where they surveyed the complex. But the screams told them of the terror and suffering. Lyons took one of the radio-fused charges from under his gray fatigue shirt and passed it to Nate. Now they each had a pound of C-4 plastic explosive hidden under their belts.

"Wizard," Lyons whispered into his radio.

"Here. Nothing crazy yet. Monitoring it all."

"You're not hearing what I'm hearing. Do us a favor. If they take us, push the button on the radio charges. Understand?"

"Understand. Over and adios, brother."

Blancanales's voice came on. "Nate. Ironman. Good luck."

Lyons clicked off. Nate dropped to the gravel. Lyons followed a moment later. They walked through the vehicles, double-checking for sentries. In the shadows and glaring lights, pro-fascist mercenaries passed Nate and Lyons. But their uniforms and weapons concealed them. Still, Nate kept his left hand near the pistol grip of his M-16. He kept his right arm tucked into his belt, only six inches from a holstered Colt Government Model on full-cock. Lyons folded his arms over his Atchisson to conceal the oversized receiver group and magazine. He had seen mercenaries carrying G-3s, Galils and Remington 870s. Though he did not fear that the Atchisson would betray him, he did not want mercenaries to question him about his avant-garde full-auto assault shotgun.

A six-foot-high chain link fence marked the edge of the mine field. Signs marked with a skull and crossbones and printed in four languages — English, Spanish, French and German — warned the camp personnel of the danger. Lyons and Nate started to the cavern.

When they left the parked buses and trucks, they saw the horror.

Truck headlights lit the scene. In the center of the large graveled area for the trucks, steel beams leaned against the platform of a cargo truck. Chains bound the young man and his uncle to the beams. A mercenary with a welding torch played the intense blue flame over the blackened stumps of the older Indian's legs, the man's feet and ankles already burned away.

The night stank of scorched flesh.

Other mercenaries crowded around, laughing and guzzling booze. As Nate and Lyons approached, another torturer heated a steel rod red hot. Then he jammed it into one of the boy's eyes.

The image and the scream tearing through his consciousness, Lyons staggered, dizzy with horror and sorrow, his gut knotting. He stumbled, Nate catching him.

As the fascists a few steps away laughed at the nightmare, Lyons dropped to his hands and knees and vomited. Nate knelt beside him, his good left arm over Lyons's shoulder as he gasped and choked. Nate felt a sob wrack the North American.

"Can't keep that booze down, eh, man?"

"Take a drink," said a voice.

Nate looked up. A drunken mercenary held out a pint bottle of aguardiente. He took it. "Thanks."

"Tonight a party," the mercenary laughed, twisting off the cap of another bottle. "But tomorrow, the orgy starts."

The guy moved on. Nate offered the bottle to Lyons. Around them, mercenaries looked at the blond man staring into his vomit, then turned back to the spectacle of the Indians.

"Drink, they're looking at us."

Lyons's hand moved for the grip of his Atchisson. Nate grabbed his arm and held it tight. He whispered to Lyons: "Don't see it. There's nothing we can do. They're done for. But, they would understand. They know we're here, but they've said nothing. Therefore they know they'll not die for nothing. We are going to walk past, and then we are going to burn this monster. If we can do it quick, they'll survive long enough to know it. Let's do it before they die."

Nodding, wiping his face, Lyons stood. He gulped from the bottle and staggered. As they passed the horror, Lyons looked again.

Lyons was no longer broken by the crime. Nate saw a face that had become stone, although it was streaked with tears. The sparking and popping of the welding torch lit his hardened features as Lyons looked at the scene, and scorched the image into his mind forever.

They walked toward the cave. Pouring aguardienteinto his hand, Lyons washed his face with the high-proof alcohol. He brushed back his short hair. Nate heard Lyons's breath shuddering in his throat.

For the first time, Nate trusted this stranger who fought with him and his Quiche friends.

"You know how I came here?" Nate spoke suddenly, his voice as loud as the other mercenaries walking around them. "You must think Guatemala is nowhere. When I was eighteen, I was a badass Marine Recon warrior dropping into Laos. Had some severe personality conflicts with my commander. We did not agree on what was acceptable human behavior with prisoners and non-combatants."

As they approached the mercenaries working in the cave, Nate lowered his voice. "I liked those people. I wish we'd won the war, I wanted to stay there. Instead, my commander got shot in the back one mission. I get convicted of shooting him, Murder Two. Life in Leavenworth."

"Did you shoot him?" Lyons asked.

"I don't know. Maybe. Things get confused when you have a People's Army battalion chasing you through the jungle."

The two men entered the cave. They passed unchallenged through the preparations for the next day's coup. In the center of the cavern, parked among the Cobras and Hueys, they saw a blue-and-white executive helicopter.

"Is that his?" Lyons asked.

"I've seen it before. But..."

Walking along the side of the three-story barracks, they scanned the officers of the command staff. They saw plainclothes guards standing at the doors of one office.

"His men?" Lyons asked.

"All the Guatemalan and Salvadoran fascists have bodyguards."

"You break out of Leavenworth?" Lyons had to know.

"Out of a prison bus. Two other prisoners had friends ambush the bus on the highway. I'd done two years in the brig while the trials and appeals went on, and I knew what to expect in Leavenworth. I escaped with them. They took me to the Black Panthers and the Weatherman. I was the most qualified soldier that ever came their way. They wanted me to be a guerilla warfare instructor. To help them kill police. Politicians. I told them to stuff it. I went south. Through Mexico, into Guatemala, into the mountains. I had a good life, never wanted to go back. But Unomundo came."

Nate pointed behind the prefabricated mess hall and kitchens. They stepped off the concrete path. Maintaining an even, unhurried pace across the irregular stone of the cave floor, they walked behind the kitchens.

Stenciled red warnings marked the sides of a gleaming white cylinder.

DANGER

LIQUID PETROLEUM GAS

EXTREMELY INFLAMMABLE

This was what they sought. Lyons and Nate crawled along under the pipes and concrete blocks that supported the prefab units, then waited and watched. Footsteps crossed the floor of the mess hall, making the metal floor creak.

Only ten feet separated them from the one-inch galvanized pipes connecting the tank to the kitchen. They waited for a minute, then crawled to the pipe. It was dangerous; they were exposed to view.

Nate closed the emergency valve. He took the radio-fused slab of C-4 explosive from under his shirt and gave it to Lyons. He slipped a hacksaw blade from the bloodstained top of the gray boots he wore.

As Nate sawed on the pipe, Lyons moved back to snake himself under the tank. He put the first charge where the base brackets met the cylinder. Molding the puttylike explosive, he formed a strip along a foot of the tank's circumference. He came up on the far side of the tank. He found a valve welded into the end of the tank. A steel cap sealed off the valve. The second charge went around the weld. He could take his time because he was concealed from view.

"What the hell you doin', soldier?"

A cook stood on the walkway. The guy wiped his hands on his stained apron as he looked down at Nate. Lyons stayed flat on the rocks.

"Leak in the joint," Nate told him, pointing to the emergency valve.

"Where?"

"Here. You can smell it."

The gray-haired, overweight cook waddled over to the pipe. "I didn't notice anything."

Nate stood as the cook bent down to look.

"Hey, you're hacksawing the goddamned..."

Grabbing the mercenary's head by the ears, Nate slammed his head into the valve again and again, using the valve handle to crush his forehead. He shoved the body under the mess hall.

"Close," Lyons hissed.

"A few more minutes."

"Cut it. But don't open the valve yet. I want to confirm that he's here, right now, in the cave."

"How?"

"I'll do it." Lyons keyed his hand-radio. "Pol. Wizard. Charges are set. He's cutting the line. I'm going to go confirm on the man."

Blancanales answered. "Next bus, we're coming in."

Lyons left Nate sawing at the line. Forcing himself to walk slowly, his eyes swept the vast cavern for the blond, half-German Unomundo. At the executive helicopter, a Hispanic in a tailored Italian suit, gold flashing on his wrist and fingers, supervised the work of a crew of mechanics.

At the steps to the rows of offices, two well-dressed Hispanics with Uzis questioned a mercenary soldier. They would not let him pass. The mercenary shouted past them to one of the fascist leaders leaving an office: "His men won't let me go back to my office."

The mercenary from the office, his fatigues starched and pressed, a badge of rank on one shoulder, called down to the bodyguards: "That soldier's on the staff. He's authorized."

The bodyguard stood aside. Lyons realized that none of the mercenaries he saw on the office walkways carried weapons. He saw no M-16s, no side arms.

Lyons returned to the mess hall. Following the walkway past the kitchens, he saw that the rear of the building butted against the irregular stone of the cavern's south wall. He slipped into the dark space.

The shadows became darkness. He stumbled over pipes and scraps of wood and sheet metal. Light from office interiors shone through ventilator grilles.

A voice came from the ventilators of a second floor. The speaker raved in Spanish. Lyons damned his ignorance of the language. Yet he knew he heard Unomundo. The rhythms, the exclamations, the modulation of the tones indicated the professional rhetoric of a politician. But he had to confirm his guess.

At the end of the office building, he crossed to the barracks. He rushed to the end of the barracks walkway. Twenty feet away, the bodyguards stood at the steps to the offices.

Keeping his right hand on top of his Atchisson's receiver, his left hand in the open, Lyons jogged to them. Their eyes narrowed as the mercenary with the auto weapon rushed to them. Lyons saluted.

"Got a message for Unomundo. The peonesare talking. They are part of a CIA plot. My officer continues the interrogation. Would our commander want to question the Indians?"

The Hispanics listened without speaking. One looked to the other, glanced toward the offices. The second man nodded, then ran up the stairs.

"Wait," the bodyguard told Lyons.

"I'll come back. I must get my colonel."

Flashing another salute, Lyons jogged to the mess hall. He glanced back. The bodyguard watched him. He went around the corner to the kitchens. He saw no one in the area. In a few seconds, he squatted beside Nate.

"He's here."

Only a fraction of a centimeter of steel linked the two sections of pipe. Nate grabbed the valve and wobbled it, attempting to break the pipes apart. Lyons kicked the pipe, once, twice, stood on it and jumped.

The pipe broke. Lyons spoke into his hand-radio.

"We've cut the line. And we've confirmed Unomundo's here. Are you ready?"

"Affirmative," Blancanales answered. "We're in. The men are moving into position."

"This is it. Over."

Nate opened the valve. A colorless gas rushed from the severed pipe. Looking through the spreading gas, they saw the shadowy rocks waver as the flow spread. White frost formed instantly on the valve and pipe and the rocks.

Lyons and Nate ran. At the mess hall walkway, they forced themselves to slow to a quick walk. Lyons pointed to the center of the complex.

They strode toward the helicopters. Lyons looked back once at the offices. Bodyguards, pro-fascist mercenaries and Guatemalan army officers — the traitors' chests bright with medals — crowded from a door. All the Nazis attempted to speak with one person, a tall, blond man with the sharp sculpted features of an aristocrat. Wide-shouldered bodyguards knotted around him.

"Unomundo," Lyons told Nate.

Nate glanced back at him and smiled. "Soon he burns in hell."

A bodyguard spoke with Unomundo. The Hispanic pointed into the night to the searing light of the welding torch torturing the two Quiche men. Unomundo spoke with a mercenary officer. The officer led Unomundo and a knot of bodyguards down the steps.

Lyons and Nate maintained their stride. They passed Hueys and Cobras. Technicians loaded rocket pods. Other men pumped aviation fuel into the helicopters' tanks. Nate smiled to Lyons.

Leaving the brilliant light of the cavern, they saw a flashlight blink from the top of a parked bus.

The crowd of drunken mercenaries laughed. A scream rose, wavered, faded. Lyons's hand-radio buzzed.

"Give the signal!" Gadgets told him, his voice seething with anger and frustration. "Time to put that goon gang down!"

The rotorthrob of a helicopter approached from the sky. With his thumb on the transmit key, Lyons looked up at the black silhouette of a Huey against the stars. He looked back to Unomundo.

Leaving the cavern, Unomundo and his bodyguards hurried to the horror. The Hispanic bodyguard who had listened to the faked message about the CIA and the Indians pointed to Lyons. Unomundo and all the bodyguards turned.

Lyons hissed into the hand-radio. "Wizard, do it! He's getting out!"

Swinging the barrel of his Atchisson around, Lyons flicked down the safety and sprayed full-auto high-velocity steel at the Nazi warlord.

A great wave of flame churned from the cavern.